


Little things

by shadeblue



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Fluff, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-12
Updated: 2014-09-12
Packaged: 2018-02-17 02:17:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2293283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadeblue/pseuds/shadeblue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Suddenly, babies everywhere in Beacon Hills seem interested in Derek Hale.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Little things

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by tumblr user [peterhale](http://obrosey.com/) :)

People just keep handing him babies. The first time is at the grocery store, and, okay, he more like _caught_ the baby than was handed it. Derek had been trying to decide on a cereal that Stiles wouldn’t mock him for the next time he raided his pantry but that he also wanted to eat when the young mother next to him had somehow pulled down an entire shelf on top of herself.

She’d been holding the baby when it happened, a tiny little thing with a yellow ribbon in its half inch of hair. The baby had been staring at Derek the entire time. He had refused to stare back in an attempt to tell it who was in charge of the pack. It was a _baby._

There hadn’t been time for her to curl her body around the child protectively, even though she had tried, turning her shoulders away and exposing her face and head to the metal shelf. No. Derek hadn’t thought, had barely breathed before stepping between the woman and the shelf, bracing for the sudden weight and pain. Several lights flashed in front of his eyes, the usual sign that something heavy and horrible had hit him in the head. Bruises bloomed and began to fade along his shoulders. The weight settled with Derek crouching over the woman and child. Cereal rattled across the floor in a soft sugary rain.

The baby was still staring at him. She looked at him for a long few seconds before she opened her tiny mouth and started to scream.

She screamed while Derek stood slowly, sloughing off cardboard boxes and metal shelving like snow. She screamed while people scrambled to help, calling 911, the store manager, the woman’s husband, and probably the mayor as far as Derek could tell. She screamed while they walked slowly outside, Derek pretending to be stiff but largely undamaged. She sceamed while the EMTs sat her mother carefully down in the back of an ambulance. She screamed a lot when they attempted to take her from her mother. The woman started crying, for a moment trying to pull the child closer. The lead EMT started speaking softly, slowly, the way Derek spoke to new wolves, then suddenly the woman was shoving her baby at him, just him, not the EMTs or caring ladies standing all around. Derek.

She stopped screaming as soon as he picked her up.

Stopped screaming and resumed staring. Derek stared back at her, involuntarily bringing her closer and closer to his body until she was nestled against his chest. She was like a magnet. A tiny baby magnet that smelled gently scared, yet mostly of sleep and hunger. The EMTs looked at him like some kind of alien, a measure of their goodwill fading as they tried to determine his relationship to the woman he had confessed not knowing at all. Derek smiled back. That didn’t really seem to help.

The mother cried less while they checked on her. When they pronounced her completely unharmed, Derek handed the baby back as quickly as possible.

“Thank you,” she said, taking a breath to continue.

Derek shrugged and smiled. “Sure.” He took the breath not for a continuation but as a sign to run to his car as casually yet quickly as possible.

Thus began the babies.

The second baby was maybe his fault. It’s just that it was _staring_ at him. Just like the first baby. Big blue eyes on this one, a little boy, watching him in the park while he tried to read in the sunshine. Sitting on a little blanket and staring. His parents were a little older than the woman at the store, and largely distracted by their older son, who kept waiting until they weren’t looking at him and bolting for the woods. Kids could run fast, apparently. Being a sibling—former—he understood. Sometimes you just had to run for the woods and see if mom would chase you.

This, of course, because somewhere on his body was now apparently tattooed “Derek Hale, watcher of small babies,” meant that the baby who was staring at him also tried to escape. It had learned the rules of siblingdom early. The chosen path of escape for this little one was not into the woods but toward Derek. Across a very busy bike path.

He waited. It wasn’t his baby, he wasn’t supposed to take care of it. The parents had noticed the last few times the baby had headed out, easily catching him and depositing him on the blanket. This time, however, his brother had gotten pretty far toward the woods, dragging both his parents off the blanket. The mother stood only a few steps away, watching the father close in on the toddler in the tree line.

The baby kept on coming. He had to respect its determination. And its eye contact ability. The book fell closed, all of Derek’s attention settling on the tiny little thing crawling toward the whizzing bikes. His parents would get him. They would. Any minute now. Any—

Derek dodged two bicyclists, caused a likely accident with a third, and grabbed the baby right as he crawled onto the sidewalk. Luckily it had been between the herds of professional bicyclists. Even Derek wasn’t good enough to get through one of those in time. Not without hurting someone or giving himself away.

Even so, the mother was staring at him. Mouth open slightly, face pale not in fear, just in shock. Derek held the little boy in one arm. He squirmed around until he was facing Derek and could continue to stare up at him. All he could think to do was smile. Apparently Derek’s smiles were much less comforting when it came to babies, as the mother just got paler.

“Sorry—” Derek started.

At that, the mother laughed, a short, harsh sound without an excess of humor. It wasn’t cruel. Derek was very familiar with the tones of cruel laughter. Just scared with undertones of relief. He knew that kind as well, if less intimately. She reached out for her son, and Derek gave him willingly.

“Thank you,” she said. The father was on his way back, son wrapped under his arm. The toddler laughed, despite having been foiled in his plan. Something hard and hot hit Derek below the breastbone, something that made his eyes flash and his skin scream.

“Of course,” he replied, perhaps more aggressively than he intended.

She took the child from him gratefully, looking as though she wanted to say more thanks, more something.  The moment she turned to check on her husband’s progress, Derek was gone.

 He drove home, going way too fast, changed his clothes and went for a two hour run. It helped. A little.

The third time he was actually handed the baby.

He’d been trying to help Scott with lacrosse stuff, because Stiles was with Malia and Liam was with Mason and Kira was…somewhere. He had honestly stopped listening and just nodded until Scott smiled and grabbed the lacrosse sticks.

They’d gone to the park instead of the school. Derek was of the opinion that he already spent an abnormal amount of time at his former high school. He didn’t really need to encourage

 

people thinking he was weird, or a stalker, or a creep about high schoolers. Besides, nothing good ever seemed to happen on that lacrosse field.

Scott had told him basically what he wanted to work on, showing Derek how to hold the stick and the different drills. Derek got it. He had been an athlete, once. This was just using a stick instead of his hands. They ran around for a little while before the park started to get busy. More families, children, babysitters and bored huddles of preteens. A mother settled on a blanket some distance from them with her little one. After the park got busy they settled into just tossing the ball back and forth.

“Hey, I’m gonna go refill the water bottle,” Scott said a little later. “You need anything?”

Derek shook his head, watching Scott jog toward the water fountain on the other side of the playground. He sank to the ground. The mother and baby were lying on their blanket, staring contentedly at the sky. A few seconds after Derek sat down, the baby turned its head and commenced ‘baby staring 101,’ something Derek was getting a little overly familiar with.

Enough was enough. The babies had to learn. He turned his head toward the baby, making direct eye contact. When he was absolutely sure the mother was looking at the sky and not at him, he let his eyes glow gently blue. Not so much a threat as a show. Like, look here, kid, you can stare but I am in charge. And preferably if you would stop staring that would be great. Please go ahead and spread that around to all your baby friends.

So he was very surprised when the baby giggled and its eyes lit up right back. Not blue, obviously, but the bright gold of new werewolves. Of innocents.

The mother twisted on the blanket, sitting up suddenly and glaring at him. In a moment, the air shifted, hitting him with _wolf, protect, anxiety_ in rapid succession. Derek blinked. She snatched the baby off the blanket and pulled him close.

“Wait,” Derek said, lifting both his hands. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know.”

Anger faded to suspicious confusion on the mother’s face.

Derek took a short breath, then a chance. He let his eyes glow again, briefly. “I’m sorry. It was a mistake.”

 Her lips parted. “You’re—”

Derek nodded. “I shouldn’t have done that. I’ve…had a weird couple of days, sorry.”

For a moment, he thought the woman was going to leave anyway. Then she smiled. “It’s okay. I…well…”

The air shifted again. Oh. “You aren’t—” Derek stopped. There wasn’t really a less rude way to finish that sentence.

She shook her head, brown hair falling around her face. “My boyfriend. We didn’t really—well. But it’s okay.” She looked down at the baby. “I love her. I don’t really know what I’m doing, but I love her.”

Derek smiled. “I’m sure she loves you too. Look, I guess this is weird, but—” Wait, what was he doing? “If you guys ever need a babysitter, someone who understands—” This was a terrible idea what was happening, he didn’t even _like_ babies. “I can give you my information.”

Her face lit up. “Oh my god, really? That would be _amazing_. We seriously haven’t left the house since she was born, and it’s fine, but I’ve just been so scared that she’d do something to a babysitter and then people would freak out and—” She stopped and pursed her lips in a mild version of something he saw Lydia do constantly. “Yes, thank you. That would be fantastic.”

“I’m Derek,” he said, holding out one hand.

Instead of a handshake, he suddenly had an armful of werewolf baby. She just fell forward, forcing Derek to reactively pull her against his chest so she had somewhere to land. With a happy sigh, she tucked her tiny head into his neck and scented him.

“I’m Sarah,” the mother said. “And this is Callie.”

Derek tilted his head toward the baby. This was weirdly easy. Maybe his exposure was getting the better of him. “Hello, Callie.”

“Uh—” said a new, familiar voice.

Derek turned his head around to see Scott standing with the water bottle. His Alpha seemed stunned. Scott turned away a little, like he was interrupting and was going to leave. Then he seemed to realize how little sense that made and walked over to Derek.

“Hey, there,” Scott said, dropping into the grass next to them. He smiled the award-winning Scott McCall smile at Sarah. “I’m Scott.”

“Scott is my Alpha,” Derek said in a low voice. He didn’t look directly at either of them when he said it. Callie was trying to get a grip in his beard. It was somewhat distracting.

“Oh! Very nice to meet you,” Sarah replied. They shook.

Derek glanced up at Scott. The teenager was looking at him like he wanted to ask how this had happened. He didn’t. Scott was too polite, too assuming when it came to the people he cared about. He probably thought Derek was just doing the right thing in some form or fashion. It would never occur to Scott that Derek had been trying to cow the baby into leaving him alone, mucked it up, and somehow made new friends and got a babysitting gig.

His life was weird.

Scott and Sarah chatted in the sun for a few more minutes while Callie attempted to climb Derek’s beard. Every few seconds he had to reach up with his free hand to detangle her little fists. She had some serious grip. Derek didn’t know much about normal baby fists, but this one was definitely a werewolf grip. Around the third time, she lost interest and started wiggling toward her mom. Sarah reached out and took her back.

“Well, we should—” Scott started.

“Of course, of course,” Sarah said. “We need to head home anyway.”

They helped her pack up the blanket and Callie’s toys. Scott offered to walk them to their car but she waved him off, laughing.

Right before they left, Sarah turned to Derek. “I’ll call you about babysitting?”

Derek did not glance at Scott when he nodded. He did not look at Scott while they walked back to the car. Or while they drove. Or when he pulled up out front of Scott’s house.

Scott tilted his head. “Want to come in? My mom’s working a double. We can order pizza.”

There was really no reason to say no. “Yeah, okay.”

They had ordered the pizza and were settling in to watch a movie when Scott finally broke.

“So….that baby was pretty cute.”

“Casual,” Derek said.

“I have literally never seen you around kids before. Do you like kids?” Scott turned toward Derek.

Derek shrugged. “I guess. I don’t hate them, or anything. But I don’t know if I really like them. Lately…”

“Lately?” Scott asked.

“Lately I strangely seem to have encountered a lot of babies. Randomly. It’s weird.”

There was a silence from the other werewolf. When Derek finally caved and looked over, Scott had his bottom lip between his teeth. He looked like he was about to sneeze.  

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“ _What_ , Scott?” Derek growled.

“Just—” Scott started laughing. And laughing. And laughing. Then laughing some more.

“Scott.” It came out flat.

“Sorry, I just—” Scott couldn’t finish talking.

“I’m going to lick all of your pizza.”

“Derek!” Scott sounded shocked.

“I will.” Derek didn’t make threats about people’s food lightly.

“That’s evil. That’s something Stiles would do.” It was the voice of experience speaking. It was the voice of someone with a sibling.

“What’s so funny about babies liking me?” Not that Derek was offended. He didn’t care about babies. He just…wanted to know why it was so improbably that babies might not like him.

“It’s not that.” Scott was quieter now, just smiles. “It just…doesn’t really fit in with the way I think about you.”

Derek raised his eyebrows.

“Not like, not like in a bad way!” Scott backtracked. “Just, you’re all leather and showing up at the last minute and claws and not so much…babies.”

“Leather and claws?” Now he was just wishing for the pizza to come.

“You know what I mean. I just figured you didn’t like kids.” Scott smiled. He looked directly at Scott, then away again. “I like…”

The silence paused long enough for Derek to become hyperaware of the pointless TV noise. “What?”

“I like knowing new things about you,” Scott said quietly.

Derek blinked. “Oh.”

Scott shrugged. “There’s always so much happening. We don’t talk much, not about anything that isn’t trying to kill us. So when I learn something new about you, it makes me happy. It’s the same with any of my pack.”

A small shiver ran down his spine at the words ‘my pack.’ Derek knew, sort of, that he was part of Scott’s pack. But they hadn’t ever talked about it specifically. They’d just fallen into a pattern of behavior, a good one, of being something like a pack. Part of Scott’s pack.

“I like Lucky Charms,” Derek said.

“Huh?”

“That’s another thing about me. I like Lucky Charms. They’re stupid, and Stiles found them once in my loft and wouldn’t shut up for a month, so I pretended they weren’t mine. But they were. I like Lucky Charms.” Derek’s voice had gone up a little by the time he finished. Telling people things wasn’t easy for him, anymore. Telling sometimes became defensively explaining. But he was telling.

Scott opened his mouth. Then he closed it again. Then he opened it one more time. “I…like puppies.”

Derek shook his head. “Everyone knows you like puppies, Scott.” Yet he was smiling. Scott had that effect on him.

“Oh, yeah. I guess.” Scott frowned a little. “Well, there’s something no one knows.”

“Oh, really?” Derek raised an eyebrow. He very much doubted there was something about Scott that no one, not even Stiles, knew. Or at least not something like that that he would tell _Derek_ of all people.

“Yeah.” For a few minutes, that was all Scott said. There didn’t seem to be any more information coming. So, the very secret thing was not something he was going to tell Derek.

“Well—” Derek was abruptly cut off by Scott leaning forward and kissing him.

Soft. That was all he could think. Soft. Warm. Scott.

A year passed. A second. No time at all.

Then Scott leaned back. His eyes were right there, deep brown. Derek only ever really noticed them when they were gold. This color, though, it suited Scott. Gentle, subtle.

“That’s the secret,” Scott said softly.

Derek smiled. There was a panic attack of some kind lingering on the edge of his mind. But it wasn’t here yet. Not yet. He had some time.

“That’s…a good secret,” Derek said.

“Yeah,” Scott smiled back.

“Yeah.”

The couch creaked slightly as they both leaned back. The TV played some commercial about a lawyer. Pizza came.

Once the pizza was gone, Scott flipped channels in silence. Then, “So, you going to babysit that little girl?”

Derek smiled without looking at Scott. “You want to come along and help?”

He could hear Scott grinning. “Yeah, yeah I do.”

“Perfect.”


End file.
